Vindication
by Lariren-Shadow
Summary: Rey receives an unexpected request to try to help Kylo Ren through their bond. Reylo kind of.


**A/N** : Thank you to mnemehoshiko for beta-ing this. Honestly I don't even know anymore.

 **Disclaimer** : I don't own.

* * *

The Force, Rey quickly learned, consisted of many different aspects and techniques than she ever thought imaginable. From what Master Skywalker said there was little the Force couldn't do and the fact that she'd already been able to persuade people was a feat for someone untrained. Untrained, he'd stressed, not weak or useless. She had potential but needed a grasp of the basic practices before expanding her powers.

She wasn't entirely sure what her powers were but she'd experienced a heightened awareness since beginning her meditation with Skywalker that she'd previously ignored. It was the same awareness that had lead her to the crashed X-wing years ago.

She had not, however, been prepared to see what she'd thought was a hologram of a young man in Jedi robes appear before her while Skywalker was off on another island scrounging for food. She stood and walked around the hologram, trying to find out where it was projecting from.

"You aren't going to find any droids," the man said.

"I can find more things than you'd think," she replied.

"The dead don't need droids," he said with a rueful smile.

"Dead?" She had no idea what the hologram was talking about.

"Living impaired, if you will." He sat on a nearby rock while Rey stopped walking to stare at him. "Your training with my son is going well."

"Darth Vader?" She asked, hand instinctively going to her staff.

"For a time," he said with a head nob, "but I'm Anakin Skywalker."

She finally lowered her staff. "Why are you here?"

"To ask a favor of you."

"What am I to you?"

"Someone who can help my family," he said simply.

"Why can't you just asked Master Skywalker or General Organa?" She had no filiality towards this once man and wasn't sure she wanted any.

"Luke tried and failed while Leia...well we've never been on the best of terms." She raised an eyebrow at him. "Luke lost a hand in his dealings with me while Leia lost a planet."

"Not exactly the best."

He shrugged. "I can't excuse what I did. The Dark Side offers a power that you think is beyond compare." She nodded. "But it also isolates you."

"Why should I care?"

"I can sense you've been tempted and I know it was my grandson who did it. I've tried to contact him," he admitted, "but he doesn't want to talk to me, he wants to talk to Darth Vader. There's good in him." Rey wasn't sure how to respond. She'd seen the Light in her brief moment in Kylo Ren's head, felt the pull over the fear. "You can help him."

"How?" She asked. She'd much rather run him through than help him.

"You still have a connection with him, one he lacks with Luke. Show him your training or anything you think would help."

"And you think that will help?" She asked incredulously. "Didn't he train under Master Luke as well?"

"He was cocky," Anakin said. "Didn't think he needed as much training as he does and thinks everything should come easy to him." Rey snorted. "Show him what you're learning," Anakin pleaded. "He can change."

With that Anakin's image shimmered, leaving Rey alone. Her first thought was to completely ignore the request. There was no reason for her to help Kylo Ren, she couldn't think of one redeeming quality in him.

That actually wasn't true; she'd felt the pull of the Light inside him and if Darth Vader could come back (even if it was just at his death) then maybe there was something for Kylo Ren.

She just hated admitting it to herself.

* * *

Luke found her fixing the _Falcon._ She'd purposely avoided meditating, though she felt the same peace while elbow deep in engine grease. "Something happened." It wasn't a question and she kept her head down.

"Hand me the wrench," she said, hand out. Luke handed it over and waited. She kept at her task, on stubborn bolt refusing to move until a forceful turn was applied. "I spoke to your father," she finally said.

"I'd expected Obi-Wan to be one of the first to contact you," Luke replied.

"Why?"

"Just a feeling. What did Anakin have to say?"

Rey stopped moving, wiped her brow, and turned to look at her teacher. "That there is still Light in Kylo Ren."

"Ben has been listening to Snoke for far too long."

Rey threw her wrench down. "He killed his father!"

"I almost did that too. I had Obi-Wan and Yoda in my head while Ben has Snoke."

"You willingly wanted to kill your father?"

Luke shrugged. "At the time I didn't know he was my father-"

"Then it's different and you know it!"

Luke closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "One thing you must learn is to let go of anger. You have to learn to forgive." With that he stood and walked out. Rey kicked the pipe in front of her. She knew he was right and hated admitting it.

For her forgiveness was a tricky concept. On Jakku there wasn't much to forgive: if she had her scavenge stolen she got it back. She never needed to forgive. Yet, anger wasn't an emotion she could afford either but she knew it and had to be able to bite it back every time Unkar Platt tried to stiff her. She could argue but food was a necessity and better not to anger those in control of it.

It took Rey another week until she even thought about trying to communicate with Kylo Ren through the Force and another week to figure out what to send. In the end she decided to broadcast her memory of Anakin speaking to her.

 _You're making this up_ , he hissed at her.

 _I'm not_ , she replied. _Maybe if you'd listened when he tried to talk to you I wouldn't have to play messenger_.

She didn't hear anything from him after that. During her meditation the next she felt Kylo probe her mind. She quickly pushed him out as much as she could.

When she'd almost got him out he whispered: _Why would he talk to you?_

 _I'm more welcoming_ , she replied with a mental shrug. She could feel his anger raise at her words. _Maybe he doesn't answer to Darth Vader,_ she taunted.

She felt him withdraw abruptly at those words. She reasoned it was because she was probably right and he didn't want to hear it. Had she known it would be that easy to get him to leave her mind she would have done it sooner.

* * *

Over the next few weeks she tried, again, to contact him. Each time was met with either a sneer into her head (which caused a headache) or silence (which she preferred). She wanted to goad him into lashing out again, to remind her that he wasn't worth her time.

"I can tell you're reaching out to him," Skywalker said over breakfast one morning.

"Maybe," she replied.

He sighed. "It's hard to let go." Rey did not how to respond.

Later that day she vowed to stop trying to contact Kylo.

* * *

 _You're avoiding me_ , Kylo whispered one night as Rey was about to fall asleep. Rey tried to force him out by clearing her mind. _That's not going to work_.

 _You ignoring me it's how this works either. If you insist, however, then you'll get to see what I've done all day_ , she retorted. She went over the meditation she'd done that morning, the saber forms practiced later, and tried to remember the holo she'd read. By the time she finished he'd left her mind.

She repeated the exercise again when he tried to contact her a few days later. It became a routine after a while: he'd try to invade her thoughts and she'd rehash her training instead.

 _You weren't focused enough when you were lifting the rocks_ , he commented on night.

 _I was too_ , she said.

 _No you were trying too hard_ , there was a pause and Rey could almost feel him debating over something. _I had to learn that focus shouldn't be as hard as you think it is. Part of letting everything slip away is letting go of your doubts._

 _Oh_. Luke hadn't explained it that way. _Thank you_ , she said softly.

Two days later he told her her stance was too wide.

 _It's perfectly fine!_ She fired back.

She heard him sigh in her head. _I'll show you what it's supposed to look like_. Suddenly there's a picture of a younger looking Luke in her mind, in the stance she'd been in earlier. She did notice his legs are closer together than her's and his weight is slightly shifted back.

 _Thank you for showing me_ , she said slightly reluctantly.

 _You're welcome_.

They continued this pattern. He'd show her bits from his training, areas where he thought she needed improvement. She caught whispers of Snoke in those memories, telling him he's not strong enough and promising more. From her vantage point she could tell their lies if only because she knew the look of pride on Luke's face couldn't be faked. At some point she started projecting the peace she felt during her meditation sessions (which had been a battle of its own) into his mind.

 _Stop that_ , he said the first time she did it. Instead of responding she kept projecting that feeling into his head.

The first night Rey didn't hear from Kylo she brushed it off. She was tired anyway and just wanted to sleep. By the third night she wondered if something was wrong and tried to reach out to him only to find he blocked her from his mind. She began to miss their talks. The realization startled her; she shouldn't care about a monster. Yet, she had to admit, at some point during their shared discussions she'd stopped thinking of him as that. She'd come to appreciate his comments and their conversations made her feel slightly less alone.

She wasn't sure what Kylo Ren was now.

The next night she tried again only to get a soft _don't_ before being pushed out. She changed tactics and tried to contact him during her meditation. _What's wrong?_ she asked.

 _I need to stop speaking to you_ , he replied.

 _Why?_

 _You're full of Light._

 _So?_

 _I should be ignoring the Light._

 _You do know Darth Vader embraced it in the end, right?_ He didn't respond so she continued, trying to reason it out for herself. _We're our choices_ , she began, _whether we listen to the call inside ourselves or what people tell us to do. You've been listening to what people have told you to do all your life. I don't...I don't think that was a good choice but it was yours and you acted on it. I think it's time you make your own decisions._

 _I always have,_ he responded hotly. With that he sent her a flurry of images: a young Ben telling his parents he was going to be a Jedi, slightly older Ben using anger to win a sparring match, the first time he said he was his grandfather's legacy. Then Ben in black robes lighting his saber for the first time and getting ready to fight.

 _Stop it!_ She screamed.

 _You said I've never made choices for myself. Every one of those-_

 _I could hear Snoke whispering to you_ , she replied. _When was the last time you didn't have him pushing you?_ She waited for his answer.

 _Think about it,_ she finally said _._ She cut off the connection there, finally admitting to herself that she might be able to forgive him if he tried.

Rey continued to send him portions of her training. Most of the time Kylo didn't respond. And yet she did see some memories. After another particularly disastrous exercised with trying to lift a boulder she caught a glimpse of an old blue and white droid flying through the air, beeping aggressively as General Organa screamed to put it down. A few days later, as she was trying to repair a portion of the _Falcon_ , he sent over a slightly hazy memory of Han fixing the same problem. She did not expect the regret that went along with that memory.

When she couldn't sleep that night she reached out to him. _Are you there?_

A hesitant _yes_ responded.

 _Good_ , she bit her lip before deciding to continue. _You've done a lot of terrible things but I think you could change if you wanted to._

 _Your time with Skywalker has made you too optimistic._

 _Actually it was you helping me that changed my mind,_ she replied. _Very few people have offered me help and they've generally all had decent intentions. If you can do this then there is possibly something Light inside you. Just show me what it is._

He stayed silent after that.

 _I've done things I'm not proud of too,_ she said softly. Still no response _. Fine I'll show you._ She sent out her memories. Of being fourteen and so hungry after the sandstorm trapped her for seven days. She got a measly quarter portion for her scavenge and watched someone she knew has extras get ten. She didn't beg; she learned early on that was not something you did. But scavenging is scavenging and it's easy to do. She followed the man and deftly took three portions out of his bag. She was almost free of Niima when another scavenger tried to take her bounty. Her staff struck the scavenger's head with enough force to draw blood. She ran to her speeder and took off.

She took a calming breath. _And I've killed_. She remembered how easy it was to shot the Stormtrooper after she'd figured out the safety on that blaster. _No one is fully good, even if they pretend to be_.

She was blocked out of his mind again.

* * *

Month passed, she went back to the Resistance base as soon as she could. Finn greeted her with open arms and demanded to be shown her newest skills. In turn she watched Finn pilot a X-wing during a low practice run.

She was helping fix a freighter when she felt Kylo's presence. It was far away but getting closer. Immediately she dropped her tools and ran to find General Organa.

"He's coming," she said as she ran into the control room.

"I know, he's surrendered."

Rey stood up straighter. "What?"

"Found a Resistance ship and commed them. He said something about making choices and handed over his saber. He'll have a trial, of course."

"Of course," Rey mimicked.

She waited until the fuss had died down before going to his cell. "You turned yourself in," she said as she stood before him.

"Someone told me that no one is fully good and I had to choose what to do," he replied.

She looked him up and down. She should still be angry at what he's done but she can't muster up the vehemence needed. It hurts, that will take time to heal, but it felt calmer somehow. "I think I can forgive you, someday," she said.

"Because someone told you to?" He asked.

"No," she paused, "if I'd tried to do that I would have said that months ago."

"Then why?"

"You became a person," she told him. "Who doesn't need to hide behind a ghost or a mask."

* * *

 **Reviews are awesome and now to work on the soulmate and nemesis AU.**


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